


A day in the life

by Calico



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Canadian Shack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calico/pseuds/Calico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where's a shack when you really, really need one? Ah, there it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A day in the life

**Author's Note:**

> Wtf is this. I can't even.

Max wasn't going to jump into the river. She was perilously low on magicka and stamina _and_ steel arrows, but she wasn't going to jump into the river unless she really fucking had to because she was tearing along a snowy rocky mountainside and the river was a silver snake a _long_ way down. If she survived the fall she'd be safe, without doubt, but it was one hell of a drop, and if she just—kept—running—

Overhead, the dragon was wheeling and roaring, a black-gold blur through scant metres of pelting snow. Behind Max, the muted thud of Lydia's footsteps reassured her that everything was not yet lost. She skidded to a halt beside a mound of icy rocks and frosted conifers, just for a second, and crouched to see if the dragon still had the scent of her; within three heartbeats, the sour stench of hot reptilian breath blasted her in the face.

Yes, apparently it did. Almost fainting, she crammed handfuls of goats' cheese and grilled leeks into her mouth, and reconsidered jumping in the river. Even if she was knocked out on the way down, at least she'd come to _not_ eye-to-eye with this great metallic brute.

"Yarrrgh," she heard, a hoarse cry of defiance; Lydia was shooting it with Ancient Nord arrows. Not doing a lot of damage but—yes. Enough. With a leathery crack of wings, the dragon backed off into the sky, circling with menace but not actually grilling _them_ like leeks – for now at least.

Lydia shot Max a grin. "You lead, I'll follow."

And they'd done this before, hadn't they? _And survived_. Max nodded and ran on, charging into the swirling whiteness with the barest hint of a path beneath her feet, hugging the icy rocks of the mountainside where she could, until—

"Thank the Nine Divines," she muttered, as they rounded a craggy curve and saw, down a scree slope but so much closer than that damn river, the clean lines of a man-made shack nestled in a spiky cluster of evergreen trees.

Time for a whirlwind sprint. "Wait here," Max murmured, then held her breath and sprinted down the slope.

Every step, she expected to be enveloped in the white-out of hot flame. Every step, she—wasn't.

As soon as she reached the trees she dropped to a motionless crouch, breathing hard. The back of her neck was prickling: the dragon couldn't see her directly, but it knew she was... somewhere. She kept as still as possible, despite her heart pounding in her throat—and then there was another roar, almost petulant to Max's ears, and the dragon's huge dark shadow passed back over the scree slope, graceful as a bird.

A psychotic, ravenous, 6-tonne fire-breathing bird.

Max kept her eyes on it as best she could, through the thick branches: from her now rather-extensive study of dragons, she knew it would spend a good while circling this area like a sentry with his suspicions roused, before returning to the rocky outcrop where they'd first encountered it, a strenuous ten minutes' run back up the mountainside. Probably thirty seconds' flight, given that wingspan, but hopefully once it had lost interest it wouldn't return.

"Follow me," Max beckoned, once the dragon was on the most distant arc of its circle, and Lydia crouched and scrambled to join her, making surprisingly little noise despite her steel plate.

Inside, the shack was blessedly quiet. Casting around, whilst there _were_ signs of life (embers of a fire; a cooking pot; numerous barrels and bulging sacks), there were no visible occupants, and no places for a frightened occupant to hide. Next to the sleep roll, Max rifled through an apothecary's satchel and found a journal: _I have had much success on this excursion, harvesting many rare frostmosses, but I'm beginning to fear that the unholy noise at night can be none other than a dragon itself, bellowing with rage! It has been getting more frequent of late. Perhaps the time has come to seek out more hospitable climes. In fact..._

"Maybe the racket it made when you lightning-bolted it in the face was the last straw," Lydia mused, reading over Max's shoulder.

Max snorted, and set about investigating the barrels instead. The first two were empty, but—"Yay, salt!" Max cried, elbows-deep in the third barrel. "Have you got all that raw meat we've been collecting?"

"I am sworn to carry your burdens," Lydia drawled, and unslung the bag from her shoulder.

Max gave her a wounded look. "I didn't ask for that, you know. But perhaps I can make it up to you by roasting a haunch of something enormous?"

Lydia grinned. "That's certainly one way you can make it up to me."

Max cooked as much as she could until she ran out of salt, and then they shared a meal of apple and cabbage stew, salmon steaks, horker loaf, roasted leg of goat, and an eider cheese wheel to finish.

"Wine?" Max offered, afterwards, feeling nearly but not quite replete.

Lydia shook her head, chewing. "It makes me sleepy." Then she wiped her mouth and fixed Max with a steely smile. "And we do have a dragon to kill, now we've caught our breath, right?"

Max's fingers were tingling. With Lydia's help, she could almost certainly beat it now. "Oh yes," she said, nodding. “Absolutely.” Then she glanced at the bed roll. She hadn't slept for sixty-three hours, at last count. "Although... don't you think I might learn more from the encounter if I were, you know, better rested?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "As you wish, my thane."

"Just for—" Max yawned, crawling into the bed roll, "—a few hours, then we'll get right back to the... dragonslaying..."


End file.
